Help with email automation - Email Sending Failed - Could not instantiate mail function.

[wesley98morgan 0]

Hi, whenever I try to run verification emails manually or during signup, or whenever I try and send the welcome emails it never sends. I then go to the activity log and that is what shows up.

Email Sending Failed - Could not instantiate mail function.

 

Is there any way to fix this. Ive also tried using SMTP but didn't fix it

 

[WHMCS SamP 18]

Hi @wesley98morgan

The 'Could not instantiate mail function' error means you are using the PHPMail() 'Mail Type' option. The PHP Mail function uses the servers "mail" function which is not always reliable, nor does it generate a friendly error. Could not instantiate mail function means that when attempting to send the email, the server rejected it.

Refer to points 2 & 3 here for suggestions on the type of server-configuration changes which could resolve this: https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer/wiki/Troubleshooting#could-not-instantiate-mail-function

Switching to SMTP under Setup > General Settings > Mail tab would allow you to have more descriptive errors when an issue does occur and is usually more reliable when sending emails. The $smtp_debug line can then be added to the configuration.php file to see the full log from the server: http://docs.whmcs.com/Email_Sending_Issues#Troubleshooting